


Make it and break it

by cuneifire (orphan_account)



Series: Mirador [4]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: 20th Century, Cold War, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 09:56:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20062138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/cuneifire
Summary: Russia can threaten all he wants; Prussia doesn't back down.





	Make it and break it

1948

.

The second time Prussia wakes up, it’s to the sound of flesh hitting bone. Pain sparks against his jaw, and the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is Russia’s face.

It’s still not a very pleasant sight, and it’s basically the same one he died to too. Same cold expression on Russia’s face, same psychopathic grin that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. The wallpaper’s different though; instead of pristine white, it’s more off-white and covered-in-bloodstains.

This he takes in in the blink of a second, running through his thoughts as he pushes up off the cracks in the floor and blinking his eyes open lightning quick.

Ha. _Blitzkrieg _quick. He grins.

His grin is ruined by Russia’s face reappearing in his vision, and the surely going to bruise side of his jaw beginning to throb.

He immediately jumps to his feet, back to the wall, shoulders straight, hand instinctively going to his right hip despite the fact that no sword hangs there.

Staring around the bleakly annoying gray room, he notices Russia is not the only nation in the room. In with him sits Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, and a bunch of other nations he doesn’t really have time (or care to) notice, because just then Russia stares at him, smile widening just enough that from a distance, one could mistake it as a real one.

Prussia doesn’t make that mistake.

“Hello, _Германская Демократическая Республика.”_ Russia greets, hand sliding to the gun at his hip. So. He gets gun and Prussia doesn’t. Prussia decides he doesn’t like where this is going.

“So nice of you to join us.” Russia says, nonchalantly picking up a few stapled papers up from the table, handing them to Prussia. “You’ll want to have these for when you go back.” _Go back where? _He thinks, shaking his head in a sort of abruptly shortened wonder. _I’m dead. Was. Am. Possibly. Pretty sure I’m dead. Countrywise. Like, I’m still alive, but my country’s now West’s- Why am I alive? _

Prussia shrugs. He’s alive- fuck it, that’s good enough. He’d leave the philosophy to Greece. 

“But take a seat, before you go.” Russia says, in a way that is entirely a command. He’s dressed in a sharp suit and clean shoes, unlike the rest of the residents of the room.

Prussia weighs his options. He can either punt Russia in the face like he deserves for treating him like some insignificant _Baltic _country he can easily annex, or he can listen to what’s going on, and then do that anyways.

His jaw still hurts, so he sits down, cracking his knuckles under the table, one by one.

“We expected this may occur.” Russia was saying, and Prussia was only really half listening. He looked around the room, searching for familiar faces.

Hungary’s lips turned down in a hardened frown, fingers touching the tapering edge of the frays of her dress. She sat on the edge of the table, as far away from him as possible. Poland sits next to her, fiddling with the decorations caught in his hair, little paper ornaments he’d likely fashioned himself over the course of it all. Next to him were Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, who looked too much like they had seen this all before, expression tightened in fear.

“We expected your return, you see.” Russia continues saying as Prussia’s gaze shifts from that area of the table to the others. Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, Belarus, basically every country in the damned foolish Balkans too, and about five other nation states he didn’t recognize who looked completely out of place, speaking in a language Prussia didn’t even recognize. Sounded a bit like Mongol, though. _What the fuck..._

“It was bound to happen at something in time. All territories have incarnations, so it would make sense East Germany has one too.” He says, with a look that goes straight through Prussia. “You have the Teutonic state’s memory, do you not? You look like him, da. Same accursed eyes, same hair, same grin, no, East Germany?”

“Wrong name, _Hurensoh.” _ His chair nearly hits the wall abruptly as he stands up, takes a step forwards and shoves his fist in Russia’s face. His knuckles hit teeth, knocking Russia back for just a second, and then he shoves him back, kicking he damned bastard’s knee in.

And for a second he feels it, in the adrenaline in his veins, in how the pain in his knuckles matches the pain in his jaw, his eyes flit shut for a half second and pain sparks in his right arm and-

_For a second he’s at the top of the world, flag (the right one, not the Nazis, not Weimar’s, but Prussia’s, the German empire’s, the right flag) stabbed into the earth next to him, the wind at his back. He takes in a breath, eyes over the horizon that spreads out in front of his vision like endless sea but better, and he can just see the world about to-_

And then knuckles hit him in the teeth, and he staggers back, nearly tripping over the chair.

“You are weaker.” Russia says, smile widening beyond anything resembling sane. “Once, you fought better.” He says.

“Oh yeah?” Prussia says, hooking his ankle around the leg of the chair to stabilise himself, wiping blood from his lips and cracked teeth with the back of his hand.

“How about-“ Another hit, this time to the left of his face. Russia smiles, still, although the place where Prussia hit him is bright red.

Prussia grins at that, coughing and swishing the mixture of blood and cracked shards of teeth in his mouth, raising his head to meet Russia’s gaze.

Holds it.

Russia smiles.

And he spits his broken teeth right on Russia’s damned fucking shoes, grabbing him by his tie and sucker punching him in the gut, taking a half second to enjoy the look on Russia’s face before opening his hand and hitting him in the nose with his palm.

_Crack. _Something snaps, and he glories in the idea that it’s Russia’s nose and not him breaking a finger.

He takes a second to enjoy his victory, pulling back proudly to look at his work, and then he feels fingers grasp around his wrist, shoving it down and twisting his arm. He stands resolute, feeling pain shoot up his arm, wrenching itself in his shoulder all the way up his neck. But he’s suffered worse, he’s suffered worse, he’s suffered worse-

A fist slams him back, and his back hits the metal wired chair, muscles tensing as he feels blood run down his cheeks, and he’s not sure whether its Russia’s or his.

Russia’s smiling gaze meets his as the world spins around him, and Prussia blinks so rapidly he almost misses it, almost misses the crystallised image that meets the back of his gaze what he his eyes close-

_Russia beats him. _

It doesn’t specify whether that means for now or forever.

“You put up a better fight than they did.” Russia notes blandly, voice the same as if he were talking about the weather.

“Although that says not much. Right, Lithuania?” Russia asks, and Prussia isn’t sure he agrees- when _he _tried to invade Lithuania, the damned pagan put up on hell of a fight. But he supposed time changes stuff like that.

Prussia’s gaze must give something away, or maybe Lithuania doesn’t sucker up to Russia in the exact way the psycho likes, because just then Russia’s gaze snaps back to him.

“Oh, and you must be looking for this, no?” he says, not fumbling because that would not be Russia, but instead searching his pocket for something that is likely either some sort of world destroying mushroom cloud or a trap strategy game of some sort, like chess (Prussia had played chess once, maybe five hundred years ago. It’d ended with him facing off against a corpse, sword red and board completely untouched)

And before Prussia can pull his attention away from Russia’s ugly sonofabitch face, a glint of metal catches his gaze.

In Russia’s hand hangs his cross. Not his Iron Cross, no, his hand reaches up and that’s fastened still hard to the collar of his uniform (dirty and shredded, but still there, so that’s a plus).

No, in Russia’s hand hangs the cross that he’s had since that fateful day with the priest, all those years ago, with that brief blessing and flicker of light and _he’s seen this before Mein Gott _and-

“Give it back.” He commands, hardening his voice to match Russia’s soulless intonation.

Russia responds in a similar fashion. “Make me, _Ублюдок” _He says, cross hanging in the air, smiling, and Prussia doesn’t understand a word of Russian but he’s pretty sure that’s a fucking insult and _Gott_ Russia’s face would look good with more bruises and less teeth. 

He reaches for the cross and end up snatching thin air. Russia pulls his hand back, with something manic that Prussia could only describe as sadistic pleasure in his eyes. “No, no, that is not right. You’ll get it when you earn it.”

Prussia hits him in the jaw again, and but Russia remains completely unaffected. “You _bastard_.” He manages to get out through slightly ragged breath, “What’s even the _point _of taking that?”

Russia shrugs, expression more than a bit gleeful, the light hitting his eyes in such a way he looks beyond demented.

“Good empires know that you win people over by breaking them. You cannot simply have their resources, their land, or force over their people. You must use fear to gain complete and utter authority over their every thought and action, don’t you think?” He pauses, expression shifting slightly for just as second, and when he speaks again his voice drops a bit.

“You would know, wouldn’t you, _фашист? _You would know that better than anyone.”

Now that’s a Russian word he knows. He knows because he heard it shouted at him every day on the front, and because after that he’d shout “_Scheißkommunist!” _Right back, because that’s exactly what they called him (and a lot more creative words) when he got shot, and he swears he can remember the ring of that word from the half second before he died.

Russia slams a hand down on his shoulder, grip so tight and crunching even Prussia has to try not to wince. But he’s awesome, so he remains stoned faced, even as he feels another bruise will soon be added to his now myriad of them.

“You must instill fear. And to do that-“ He pauses, twisting the ancient rope of Prussia’s cross in his hand. “-You must control what they love. Don’t you think? It worked well for you, why can it not work well for me?”

At the, Prussia pauses, and considers the effect spitting on Russia’s suit may have, before deciding he’d probably lose more blood than it’d be worth.

He considers it, laying down and simply letting go, letting himself rest and figure out precisely what the hell’s going on. The cross isn’t all that important anymore, anyways. It’s catholic, and he’s protestant. It’s two shitty pieces of metal stacked onto each other by a rotting nail that pokes his collarbone until it bleeds at night. It’s not even worth his tattered uniform, never mind three gallons of his blood.

He stares. Russia considers him back, eyes level, face giving nothing away. The tension hangs over in the room like gas poison, steeped into its very fabric.

(He remembers that.)

Slowly, with all the intent of the world hanging in it balance, he loosens his death grip on the chair, and with that his fist from the air. Brings it down back to his side.

It will be better, if he just does this, just lets Russia take the thing, it doesn’t matter anyways.

Either way when he closes his eyes, all he knows is that Russia beats him.

He tilts his head, slowly curling his fingers into a fist. This whole endeavour is pointless, there’s no hope, it will only end with him being battered and bruised until he can’t throw a straight punch anymore.

But when has he ever stopped him?

He lifts his gaze from the floor, raising his chin.

And very slowly, very articulately, Austria would be damned proud, he says.

“Fuck. You.”

A fist slams into his face yet again, head knocking against the metal for what feels like the twentieth time today.

But he gets up, and he jeeps fighting. Russia knocks him down, his knuckles bleed, Russia dislocates his shoulder and almost breaks his knee along with actually breaking a finger or two, and by the next day his whole body is covered with bruises, from neck to shoulders to torso to calves, purple and blue and sickly green.

But he’s seen it all before.

No matter how much he gets knocked down, he gets up, over and over again until he can’t see straight and Russia’s just aiming a single simple punch at him and he loses consciousness with ease, falling into blackness and seeing absolutely nothing when he closes his eyes, or in his dreams.

When he gets up again, he’s a bit more pleasant, solely because he can’t properly move about half of the bones in his body without threatening to fall over from pain.

He goes to the meeting without even a bandage, bruised face and black eyes and scraped cheeks. Everyone looks at him with some combination of fear. Latvia’s eyes light up and he clutches Estonia for security, Poland looks at him with something that could be called admiration but is quickly replaced by boredom, Hungary shares him a quick glance of something that might be sympathy.

Russia looks at him like he’s a lamb in the presence of a wolf, which makes Prussia crack his neck, and then hears a few bones he’s pretty sure _aren’t _supposed to crack do so anyways.

Russia smiles. “You are so funny, da. You think fighting will actually get you somewhere.” He says, laying a hand over Prussia’s bruised arm in a way that feels much more so possessive than protective.

Russia tilts his head, slowly saying the words.

“You should stop trying. You will get less hurt that way.” He says, and there’s that voice in Prussia’s head that barely has a chance at a cut off _mayb- _before Prussia slams his fist down on the table and _I never stop trying _and a glare at Russia.

He doesn’t punch him, but he really, really wants to.

His shoulders lock up as he stares.

The cross. His cross. That _FUCKING _cross.

Russia’s wearing his cross.

Not like one usually wears a cross, because they’re a damned good Christian and bother to tell the world about their beliefs, but more like the way poachers hangs animal heads on their walls after a particularly good kill.

Noticing his expression, Russia smiles some more, with that impermeable half-light in his eyes that never grows or leaves.

He leans forwards, grips Prussia’s arm painfully so, leaning forwards.

The light shifts. The walls are painfully gray, Prussia notes.

“It will be good of you to listen.”

Prussia barely gets the “Fuck yo-“ Out of his mouth before his jaw wrenches back and hot blood spills down his cheek.

He closes his eyes, and sees himself with his back to the ground, bloodied and without multiple teeth.

_Russia stands on top of him, boot dug into his chest. His throat’s dry, the shadows are dark, and there’s a knife in Russia’s hand, which he leans down to trace over Prussia’s cheek. _

_He’s making an _example of him.

When Prussia’s vision stops swirling, he looks up and sees, not for the first time in his very bloody and very (it’s feeling at this point) fucking long life, the barrel of a gun stares back at him.

“It will be good if you listen, no?” Russia repeats, voice curling up at the end, along with the slightly crooked smile on his face.

Prussia stares at him.

And for a while they just sit there, until Prussia leans back.

Russia can shoot him all he likes. He won’t die.

_(He has, but it won’t happen again) _

“Go ahead.” Prussia says, and Russia does.

It hurts.

It gets better after that, and not as in Russia-gets-nicer better but more as in there-are-generally-less-bullet-holes-in-Prussia’s-awesome-body better, more as in Prussia-gets-to-see-Hungary-sometimes-and-just-seeing-her-makes-him-smile-because-maybe-just-_maybe_-there’s-something-awesome-in-all-this, more as in Prussia-sneak-into-Russia’s-room-one-night-three-years-later-and-steals-his-cross-back, fastens it onto his neck and clutches it at night, even when the rotted nails make his skin bleed.

He doesn’t think Russia ever finds out. The cross was nothing to him.

But to Prussia, it was the-

_Something glorious in all this blood._

He smiles about that, and looks forwards to punting the damned fucker’s face in.

**Author's Note:**

> Германская Демократическая Республика- (Russian) German Democratic Republic, the formal name of East Germany
> 
> Ублюдок- (Russian) Bastard
> 
> Hurensohn-Son of a bitch
> 
> Фашист- (Russian) Fascist
> 
> Scheißkommunist- Fucking Communist. Literally, more like ‘Shit communist’, but alas, details, details.


End file.
